Damn you, LaCie.

I’ve dealt with failed power supplies on external hard drives before, but in my latest bout (clocking in at 1.5 months of technological drama), I’ve hit the motherlode of hard drive nightmares. After a failed DiskWarrior attempt ($99 – And no, they never responded to my inquiry about a refund. Not even an automated “DiskWarrior is nonrefundable.”), failed We Fix Macs data transfer (No charge, bless their hearts.), and numerous calls to LaCie headquarters, I am currently staring at this in my inbox:

Hello Mayka,

Thank you for sending your hard drive to DriveSavers Data Recovery. After our initial diagnosis we’re pleased to report that we believe we can recover your important data.

The drive is suffering from firmware issues and physical failure of the hard drive’s circuitry. In a situation such as this, the recovery begins by extracting a sector-by-sector copy of the entire drive. The resulting “image” of the drive is then forwarded to a DriveSavers recovery engineer who specializes in the software aspects of recovering and repairing critical data files. Additional steps are taken to verify the recovered data, including a complete scan for computer viruses before loading the data to a new drive.

As your order confirmation stated, the initial price range for this recovery is $700 to $2700, with the final price calculated based on the complexity and difficulty of the recovery as well as the quality and completeness of the end results. Given the difficulty anticipated with this drive and assuming a successful recovery of the most important data, we expect that the recovery labor charge will be between $1,980 and $2,430 after your discount. If the recovery only returns a portion of the needed data, the price would be reduced. In the unlikely event we are unable to recover any important data there would be no charge.

We hope you’ll give your approval for us to proceed with the recovery, and we look forward to hearing from you. Customer Service can be reached at 800-609-2301.

I balk at the numbers. Gee, I wish I could afford to throw a couple grand more at the $180 hard drive whose failing performance is not my fault, but even the lowest quote of $1980 is more than the monthly rent on my two-story, three-bedroom, Bay Area house – And that’s with the former Apple retail employee discount that DriveSavers kindly worked into my quote!

Data is expensive. I want to go with DriveSavers – They have 26 years of unparalleled data recovery under their belts, but I just don’t have that kind of money.

Fuck you, LaCie. Fuck you for making this piece of crap that couldn’t even hold its shit one day past the product’s three-year warranty. I wish they could pony up to the good ol’ fashioned value of customer concern and pay for my data recovery. Recovery of my data. Off of my drive. Which I legitimately paid for. And was destined and made for failure.

What Jackie says is true, though. After this, I will back up my data in fourteen hundred different ways. I’m gonna back up my data so hard Juvenile’s gonna do a remake of “Back That Azz Up,” only it’ll be about motherfucking data.